


Making Time

by ORiley42



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Benji's a YouTuber, Ethan's still an IMF agent, Fluff, Luther is a great friend which means he teases Ethan constantly, M/M, YouTube, except some hopefully entertaining second-hand embarrassment, is this me just sockpuppeting these characters to yell about self-care? maybe, moderately silly and basically conflict-free, old man and resident disaster Ethan Hunt is barely holding it together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25842589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ORiley42/pseuds/ORiley42
Summary: YouTuber AU, after a fashion...
Relationships: Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt
Comments: 35
Kudos: 64
Collections: Benthan Week 2020





	Making Time

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 of Benthan Week 2020! Alternate theme: Social Media AU / YouTuber AU.  
> Every fic I write turns out like: Benji & Ethan are falling in love in the goofiest way possible, Luther is sitting in the back with his feet propped up and a box of popcorn, laughing heartily at them. And you know what? I’m cool with it. 
> 
> Also, someday I’d love to do a social media AU with graphics or art, but today is not that day lol (tho if you’re a person who does art and would be interested in collabing on something for this or another fic, hmu!)

Being a superspy is not as glamorous as movies would have you believe. Sometimes, you win the high-speed car chase just to get your ass kicked by a gorgeous and inexplicably bikini-clad lady-agent for your trouble. Sometimes you stumble back to a safehouse with sand inside all of your clothes and a headache like someone stuck a fishhook into the left hemisphere of your brain, and you end up googling your ailment and convincing yourself you’re on the verge of death even though you’re probably just tired, because that’s what WebMD says.

Sometimes you’re sitting in a moldering apartment, waiting for evac, watching whatever video YouTube spits out at you when you type in, “headache help ouch.”

Ethan watches the three minute “Headache Survival Guide for Tired Bastards,” with rapt attention. He’d clicked on the thumbnail because he was charmed by its glasses-wearing, pinstripe-shirt enfolded subject, and now found its contents oddly riveting.

Benji—and wasn’t that just an adorable, animated-children’s-show-character kind of name?—had the energy of a librarian who’d seen altogether too much shit going on behind the non-fiction shelves. Knowledgeable and kind and also ready to snap at a moment’s notice. It was delightful. Even before Ethan attempted any of the remedies (such as “Drink! Water!”) the pain began to recede.

Ethan did not, as a rule, engage in anything that could be placed under the umbrella of ‘social media.’ He claimed this was for security purposes, but that was a load of bull considering most of his fellow agents were all over that Facebook thing and Insta-whatever and Snap…stuff. Ethan sighed. He never could get the hang of this technological nonsense, it’s why he left it to those better trained in that side of things. Luther, for example, was not just a computer whiz who’d pulled Ethan’s ass from the fire on more missions than he’d care to remember, but the host of a modestly popular podcast entitled _Jazz: Worldwide_. He’d made Ethan climb up into the rafters of a Viennese concert hall and hang there holding a boom mike so he could get the best possible sound on a reclusive pianist’s rare public appearance.

So, Ethan decided, it really couldn’t hurt to just make a lurking account on a silly video site. It didn’t mean anything. If everyone else was draining the Agency’s encryption and falsification resources to post pictures of their abs or whatever, then surely he could subscribe to a single (adorable) British video-maker.

That was how Ethan discovered and consequently became just-a-tiny-bit-really-not-much-at-all-but-actually-maybe-a-lot obsessed with the obscure treasure that was the YouTube channel _I Don’t Have Time For This_.

_[video extract]_

“Hello, everybody, with everybody probably being two strangers, half a dozen bots, and my mum, assuming she doesn’t have bingo tonight. In which case, let me tell you, I’m coming in at a solid second place on that schedule. Aaand now that you’ve got a glimpse into my pathetic social life and perpetually wandering headspace: welcome. Welcome to ‘I Don’t Have Time For This,’ my name is Benji Dunn, and I so very much don’t have time to be making this video. And yet. Here we are. Presumably, if you’ve stumbled upon this video, you are also spending time you don’t have looking for assistance on the internet. It is my humble hope that this channel can help you get through a few of those daily struggles where you’re thinking to yourself: ‘goddamn it, I really do not have time to…’”

Benji held his hand out, palm up, and moved it in a slow horizontal line like a waiter serving invisible dishes as splashes of text began to pop up, obscuring the whole screen. _Make dinner! Work out! Sort my laundry! Call my sister! Make that doctor’s appointment! Do the dishes!_

“Seriously, who has the time to do these things?” Benji asked as he pretended to swat away the errant text bubbles like flies. “None of us, that’s the answer. But we have to do them, which brings us to our universal Step #1…” A drumroll rumbled through the background before big block letters flew onto the screen, proclaiming, “Pick One (1) Thing™!”

“Tonight, our Thing™ is dinner.” Canned audience cheering sounded behind cheesy trumpets. “Now, this is one of my favorite break-glass-in-case-of-emergency meals. Not an ‘I’m eating a half-frozen hot dog and dipping it in mayonnaise’ kind of emergency which, yes, I have endured, for reasons more to do with foolishness than poverty or mental distress. Though the latter are no laughing matter.” Benji snapped his fingers, and the usual links to “find your local food bank” and “mental health crisis line” appeared in boxes on the screen. “No, this is a meal for when you haven’t got a lot of time, but you’ve got _just_ enough energy to do a spot of cooking, as long as it involves three ingredients or less. And ta-da!” Benji spread his arms wide in a happily melodramatic offering of the foodstuffs assembled before him, “This only has three. Not counting spices, which I don’t, because…well, no good reason. But! As I’ve said before, a few basic spices are entirely worth the initial layout. Garlic powder can save just about any meal, no matter how initially bland! And, right, back to the original goal…” Benji slammed his hands down on the counter and made determined eye contact with the camera, “making dinner. Tonight, my friends, we’re making soup!”

Ethan sighed happily, muddling himself deeper into the nest of sheets he’d created in the expansive hotel bed. (It was always a toss-up with the IMF—dank disused warehouse or five star suite, you never knew, and it meant you had to pack for everything.) The mission had been accomplished, and he was treating himself to Benji’s newest video. He’d finished watching all his older ones about a week ago and was still adjusting to his new restricted diet of Benji-content-no-longer-on-demand. He recognized that this fascination was potentially becoming A Problem, but decided that, on his personal scale of Problems, this was barely a blip. Probably.

After thoroughly enjoying the spectacle that was Benji cooking (followed up by Ethan ordering room service, because now he was starving), he returned to an old favorite, Sewing That Goddamm Button Back On, featuring Benji gesticulating wildly while nearly stabbing himself with a minuscule needle for six delightful minutes.

As the endscreen buttons popped up, Benji reminded his viewers: “If you’ve got a Thing™ you’d like some help motivating yourself to do, let me know in the comments! I can’t make any promises, because I am a disaster of a person, but I do try to make my videos about a diverse range of content. So! Let’s commiserate in cyberspace!”

YouTube comments were a despicable quagmire. The first time Ethan had ventured into that pit, he’d been shocked to find worse language and morality than what you’d scrounge up at your average dog-fighting ring. But Ethan had an element of the old-fashioned in his personality, and felt that when someone did you a kindness, you at the very least owed them a thank you. And although Benji couldn’t know it, he was doing Ethan a great kindness in sharing his thoughts, his heart, his random tips about how to understand the settings on a washing machine. So, after an intense study period to determine what a “normal” thing to say would be, he started leaving supportive comments on each of Benji’s new uploads. A few days ago, he’d even asked a question: “Hi! Recent fan, deeply enjoying your work. This channel means a lot to me, and I wonder if you’d ever talk about what it means to you?” He'd felt like a total idiot as soon as he hit send but convinced himself not to immediately delete it. He never received a reply and decided that was for the best.

That said, Ethan tended to stick to the content itself. He liked hearing Benji’s voice, he liked the reminder that there were people out there in the world trying to make it better. People who didn’t just accept or understand but embraced the hundred tiny mundanities of making it through each day. Whether a mission went sideways or off without a hitch, Ethan wanted the reminder of the world he was fighting to protect—he _needed_ that.

Luther, of course, just made fun of him for it. (Because Ethan relied on Luther to make sure he wasn’t doing something foolish technology-wise, Luther caught on to Ethan’s YouTube history—namely, the fact that he _had_ a YouTube history—very quickly). That was almost comforting, because if Luther’s first instinct _wasn’t_ to mock something, then Ethan would have to start checking the windows for flying pigs.

“Still watching that bespectacled internet man?” Luther asked as he barged into Ethan’s room bearing a six-pack of beer. “Also, I hope you ordered room service, because I’m dying of hunger.”

“Yes,” Ethan sighed, “I hope you’re in the mood for overpriced pizza.”

“Always.”

Luther had his own room, of course, but it was a room that did not contain a helpless, hapless friend to pester, so it was insufficient.

“Budge up,” Luther elbowed Ethan out of half of his blanket-bundle, “I’m an old man, I need to rest my feet.”

“First of all, you’re not that much older than me, so stop saying that or I’ll develop a crisis.”

“You’ve already developed a crisis.”

“Shut up!” Ethan didn’t hit Luther over the head with a pillow, because although he wasn’t _old_ he wasn’t a _child_ either. “I have a second point. I…”

“Don’t remember what the second point is?”

“Still shut up.” Ethan took one of the beers Luther offered and decided to be mollified.

“Now, you ready to watch a movie, or are you gonna look at your sad little glowing rectangle all day?”

“You spend all day looking at glowing rectangles.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m _paid_ for it.” Luther cuffed Ethan lightly round the head. “You know you have access to the world’s most sophisticated surveillance system, right? Instead of mooning over him from afar you could just get his number.”

“His… _what_? Luther that—I don’t want to—” Ethan’s objections ran each other over trying to escape his mouth, “that would be—I’m not a _stalker_.”

“Sure, you’re not.”

“I’m not!”

“You’re just a pussy.”

Ethan’s offended expression just made Luther laugh more.

“Whatever, man, if you wanna be alone forever, that’s your deal. _I_ am gonna watch a movie.” Luther grabbed the remote and turned on the enormous TV.

“Aw, not _Pulp Fiction_ again!” Ethan pulled the comforter over his face.

“We will watch it, and we will watch it again until you _appreciate_ it.”

“I appreciate it fine! I appreciate it times eight!”

They continued to bicker as the credits rolled, and Ethan was glad that no matter how much Luther nagged him, it was from a place of love—or at least, hearty affection. As long as Luther was around—and as long as Ethan pretended not to ‘get’ Quentin Tarantino films and had to be routinely schooled on this topic—he wouldn’t be alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you seriously telling me a drone couldn’t have done this?” Ethan complained, muscles already cramping in the biting cold. He was attached some sort of device (Luther had explained what it did, Ethan had nodded and promptly let the information evaporate from his brain) to the very top of the Eiffel Tower. As in, the broadcasting aerial. From the outside.

“Maybe,” Luther demurred, “but you get cranky if the secretary doesn’t let you out for some exercise every once and a while.”

Ethan groaned.

“And,” Luther tacked on, “do you really want to leave the safety of zillions of people—”

“Zillions is _not_ a real number—”

“—in the hands of a robot? C’mon, these terrorists aren’t kidding around.”

“Most terrorists aren’t kidding around. It’s kinda in the name.”

Luther didn’t bother responding, he just laughed. Finally, the stupid thing beeped and lit up green, and Ethan was at least able to swing underneath the nearest overhang and get partial shelter from the wind.

“Alright, connection’s solid,” Luther said, from his cozy seat wherever the hell he was. “Now you just wait to flip the switch so we can cut off their transmission and trace it to the source.”

“How long will that take?”

“Our intel says it’s happening today…probably.”

Ethan groaned again. “And what am I supposed to do until then?”

“Just…hang out,” Luther said, and if Ethan didn’t know him very well, he might’ve been convinced that Luther wasn’t laughing his ass off over that pun. But Ethan did know him, and so he grumbled a few curses at Luther before muting his mic.

He usually didn’t let himself go off-target in the middle of a job like this, but, well, the job was kaput right now. He was essentially functioning as a glitzy button pusher. Luther had taken to nodding off during mission briefings, claiming it was a privilege of his recently onset old-man-hood. Ethan decided that a privilege of his not-that-old-please-kid-stop-telling-me-you-don’t-remember-VCRs-hood was getting to play Tetris while hanging upside down on the Eiffel Tower waiting for terrorists to send some super-secret signal.

Tetris was another thing Luther made fun of him for, but it was pretty much that or Solitaire. So what if Ethan’s non-work recreational activities were virtually the same as your average septuagenarian’s? That was his business.

Ethan was actually starting to relax, despite the non-relaxing conditions, when a notification jingle startled him. For a moment, he thought he needed to jump back into work-mode, but he realized the electronic bell had come from his own personal device.

Getting notifications required being linked to something or someone who wanted to notify you—that was an unusual occurrence for Ethan. That is, outside of “notifications” such as a gun in his face or a mysterious dissolving record appearing on his doorstep. And yet…

_“I Don’t Have Time For This_ has gone live,” the little white rectangle informed him.

Ethan tapped the notification and YouTube sprang to life, bringing the face of his favorite celebrity (well…celebrity in his _heart_ ) with it.

“Hi, all,” Benji waved at the camera, and Ethan felt the stupid urge to wave back, “I hope you’re all having a lovely day. All…” Benji squinted at something off-screen, “uh, three of you. Hey, three amigos! It’s a pleasure. If I listened to the ‘grow your audience’ tips this godforsaken video platform keeps sending me, I’d provide some entertaining babble for a few minutes before jumping into the main topic, to give more people time to join the stream. But. Whatever!” Benji laughed. “Folks can watch this video later, when they have time—uh, sort-of-pun half-intended. Anyway. As you have probably noticed…this is live! So, please forgive my un-edited rambling.”

Ethan knew he should close the window. He’d be able to watch this later, like Benji said, and it wasn’t smart to get distracted while a thousand feet in the air—and Benji was always distracting. But Ethan couldn’t make himself navigate away. There was something about this, about being in the same time and moment as Benji even if they were continents away from each other, that he didn’t want to let go of.

“You may already notice I seem less frazzled than usual in this video,” Benji began, clasping his hands in front of him. “That’s because I’m not going to be _doing_ anything... just talking. Specifically, talking about what this channel means to me, and hopefully, what I’m sharing with you.”

Ethan’s heart felt like it had fallen out of his chest and plummeted all eighty stories to the ground. This was _his_ question! Benji was answering his question. No, wait, maybe…well, surely others had asked it before too. Maybe he was addressing all those other people…. But Ethan couldn’t convince his fluttering pulse that this wasn’t Benji speaking directly to him.

“So, starting especially from the title. I Don’t Have Time For This. It’s not just snark! It’s…” Benji wiggled his fingers theatrically, “ _deep_. Because first, there are lots of situations where you _really_ don’t have the time to do something. It’s been especially important to me to know these times, and to practice saying ‘no’ to other people when they make demands that I just can’t meet. I hope this is something that can help you too. Your boss asks you to come in for a shift at short notice when you’ve made plans to finally clean out your closet that weekend? You tell him sorry, you’re not available. Drawing those boundaries can be really important, and really difficult. It’s also really important to know those moments, so you can also recognize the situations when you DO have time but aren’t giving that time to yourself.

So, I’m not talking about when it’s the end of the day and you’re exhausted, and you say to yourself ‘I don’t have forty five minutes to run on the treadmill because my ex said I was carrying some luggage around the old tum—screw anyone who says that stuff to you, by the way, especially if they’re named Jeremy…” Benji sends a quick glare at the camera before visibly pulling himself back on track, “No, I’m talking about a different kind of ‘not having the time.’ When you say you don’t have fifteen minutes to take a turn around the block and breathe some fresh air. Seeing a bird and getting some movement and vitamin D could make or break whether you feel like a human that day! If you say your life is at a point where you don’t have time for that, first off…”

Benij turned his palms up on the table before him, and it was like he was reaching out to hold your hand, “I believe you. I believe your experience. Modern life has all sorts of outdated and broken structures that leave us feeling insufficient. When really, it’s just that our 9-to-5 assumes we have a wife or servant at home doing domestic labor for us, and our social safety net has been ripped out from underneath our feet, and we’re struggling with disability and trauma that the people around us refuse to understand.

But you deserve to live a whole life, and that includes time to do things like enjoy nature, connect with your inner self, have a lie in, bake some bread, watch some telly, take up a hobby that you’ll end up being terrible at but that was fun to try…

Is there someone who can help you? Let them. Someone you can ask for help? Try asking. You’re not a burden. You can give them the space to say no to protect their own health while not diminishing your own worth. Is it time to look at your life and make a hard change? Quitting an abusive job or finding a better home may not feel like accessible options, but if you can find just five minutes every day to start investigating alternatives, you might discover that hope and help are out there. I promise.”

Benji blew out a long breath, and even on the tiny screen, the depth of his emotion was clear.

“Alright. That was a lot. Think I’ve been keeping it bottled up for a while—it’s what I think about when I see what all you lovely people share with me, a stranger you don’t know from Adam, just being so open and kind and vulnerable. So. Tried to repay the favor.”

Ethan was moved. He was transcendent. Maybe it was just the altitude getting to his head, but he didn’t think so. Was this why so many people spent so much time on the internet? He felt like he could cry in that good way that had eluded him since childhood.

“Possible signal incoming, stand by,” Luther’s voice overrode Benji’s on Ethan’s tablet. Whoops.

“I’m going to take up model building!” Ethan announced, more exuberant than most people getting whipped by 60-mile-per-hour winds were, “I always wanted to do that as a kid and never got the chance.”

Static crackled along the channel. “Uh…that’s great, Ethan, but could you save the miniature submarines for later, and get your ass in gear now?”

Right. Ugh, terrorists had the worst timing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan had long since catalogued Luther’s most commonly utilized facial expressions, and Luther had done the same for him. It was incredibly useful, allowing them to communicate important information in the field, as well as share depths of irritation and eye-rolling annoyance at mind-numbing briefings.

The expression currently decorating Luther’s features was unfamiliar, and it gave Ethan pause. He suspected it was a cousin of the Practical Joker, last used to announced the substitution of a certain section chief’s favorite banana pudding with mayonnaise, and felt a sudden urge to check that there wasn’t a “kick me” sign taped to the back of his jacket.

“Hi,” Ethan offered cautiously, taking his time to check out the surroundings. The IMF’s east coast HQ looked as it always did—no precariously balanced buckets of water in doorways, no colleagues lurking nearby with pies ready to hurl in unsuspecting faces.

“Hi, Ethan, thanks for coming in,” Luther shook his hand, and the bizarre show of professionality confirmed for Ethan that there was Something Afoot.

“Well, it is my job,” Ethan pointed out.

“Right. So, this way…” Luther headed off down the hall towards the main cortex, and Ethan followed, metaphorical spider-sense going wild.

“I know you’ve been looking to expand your team,” Luther explained over his shoulder, “And there’s a new tech analyst who’s been making waves. I’m excited for you to meet him.”

Ethan _was_ looking to grow his stable of trustworthy fellow operatives, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still a whoopie cushion waiting somewhere. “Since when are you excited for me to meet anyone, much less a tech expert other than yourself?” he asked, squinting at Luther’s back.

“Since this person is…unique,” Luther concluded tactfully. “Ah! Bet your ears were burning, Mr. Dunn, we were just talking about you…”

Luther clapped a suspenders-clad man on the shoulder, making him jump slightly before turning to gift the newcomers with a lopsided smile. “Mr. Stickell! Back again? Oh, and this must be the friend you told me about.”

Ethan was frozen, stock still, like an idiot. Because it was him. _Him_. Him™! Purveyor of Ethan’s one and only digital guilty pleasure. It was Benji.

“Hi, I’m Benji Dunn, pleasure to meet you.” Benji held his hand out in Ethan’s direction and Ethan didn’t even look at it, too busy staring at _Benji in the flesh not on a computer screen because he was standing right there in front of him_.

“Um…” Benji’s hand faltered rather sadly in midair, and Ethan’s instincts revved up enough to grab his hand and shake it robotically.

“Hi. Ethan. Hunt, I’m Ethan.” He dredged up some sort of smile, but judging from the way Benji paled slightly, it wasn’t one of his best.

“Sorry,” Benji’s bright posture wilted, “have I already committed some sort of fatal social gaffe? I’m really sorry, if so, I wish I could say that was unusual behavior for me…”

“No!” Ethan choked out, glaring rusty daggers over at Luther, whose eyes were positively twinkling with merriment at his situation. “That’s not…you’re fine. Very fine. I mean, that is to say…”

Benji seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that as social gaffes went, the ball was very much in Ethan’s court. “Are you alright?” he tried to ask, very kindly, just as Ethan blurted out, “I’ve seen you on the internet.”

“Oh. Oh!” Benji’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed. “Wow, that’s—I’ve never, uh…. You’ve seen those, er, um, my stuff on YouTube?”

“Yes,” Ethan confirmed in a rush, realizing he’d managed to state his acquaintance in the creepiest way possible, “yes, I’ve seen those. Some of them. Uh, the whole ‘Don’t Have Time’ series, pretty much.”

“Well, you probably haven’t seen _all_ of them,” Benji laughed, “I’ve been doing those for years now! You’d have to spend _days_ watching…”

Ethan blanched. Ethan fiddled with the hem of his jacket. He was having horrible flashbacks to a failed attempt at asking Jenny Tate out to prom in high school, except this time he couldn’t flee the state to become an international superspy, because he’d already done that.

“Oh,” Benji blinked. “That’s…” He seemed more than a little thrown.

Luther sidled up to Ethan, “Bet you’re wishing there was an airplane you could jump out of right now.”

“I’ll get you back for this,” Ethan threatened out of the corner of his mouth.

“Somehow, I don’t think so,” Luther chuckled, giving Ethan a brisk pat on the back before disappearing, leaving him alone with Benji.

“It’s nice!” Benji announced at a higher decibel than was really required.

“Huh?” Ethan wanted to run away to a country where he didn’t speak the language. He could do that.

“That you, uh, are a fan, or, that you at least watched…it’s nice. I’ve never met someone in real life who’d seen my videos. It’s kind of like a secret identity, except, the opposite of secret since it’s posted online for literally anyone to see.”

“Ha!” Ethan made a noise that was sort of like a laugh, a little like a sob, and nothing like what a functioning adult would say when confronted with someone they admired.

Benji adopted that slow nod that people utilized when the conversation had dried up and they saw no way out and were just hoping to outlast the awkwardness.

Ethan also had no exit plan, which was virtually unprecedented, nor did he have anything—anything!—to say. _Say something, for the love of god say something—_

“Mr. Stickell kind of made it seem like you wanted to talk to me,” Benji finally broke, looking like he might start sweating from the strain, “But. If you don’t that’s fi—"

“No! I do!” Ethan’s hands clenched into fists. Unfortunately, there was no judo move for kicking oneself into gear. “I do want to talk to you. I—Mr. Stic— _Luther_. Luther is…mainly trying to embarrass me, and it’s not fair that you’re caught in the crossfire.”

“Ah. I see…sort of. Not really.”

“You know, don’t worry about it. Because I think Luther’s also trying to do something nice in his own obnoxious way, by forcing me to tell you…tell you…”

Benji cringed ever so delicately, and asked with only half a laugh, “You haven’t got a secret shrine full of pictures of my face with the eyes scratched out, have you?”

“No!” Ethan’s face heated, he could only hope he didn’t look like a tomato, “God, I promise, it’s nothing creepy like that.”

“Oh, good,” Benji replied faintly. “Then. Uh, would you like to…tell me? Whatever it is?”

“Yeah. Ok.” Ethan’s mind was blank. Like a lake on a windless day. C’mon, brain, you’ve spent _way_ too much time thinking about this man and his words, surely you can dig some of that up!

“So,” Ethan began, “I was on the Eiffel Tower—"

“Sorry,” Benji cut in, “not _at_ or _in_ , but _on?”_

“Well…yeah. Kind of. Suspended from…” Ethan tried to clarify, miming holding himself at a ninety degree angle, and doing rather a bad job of it.

“Oh, right,” Benji seemed a bit dazed, which was a nice change of pace for Ethan, who’d been alone in his daze-ment for a while now, “Ok, continue.”

“So, I was on the Eiffel Tower, waiting to intercept these terrorists’ signal—”

Benji’s eyes widened like he wanted to interrupt again but restrained himself.

“—and you went live with the uh, the live…thing. And. It really spoke to me. What you were talking about…I mean, I’ve spent my whole life trying to make the world a better place no matter the cost, but the way you talk about the value of time and self makes me think…uh. It. It makes me think about things and feel things…that I don’t usually. And it. Means more to me than I can apparently say with words.”

Ethan threw his hands up in the air, self-deprecating.

Benji looked so soft around the edges, and Ethan could see all sorts of things that a teeny video screen wiped away, the fine lines around his eyes and the touch of gray in his hair and the way his hands were always dancing a nervous little conga line at his sides. Ethan thought, optimistically, that he might be making progress in recovering from his disastrous initial impression. 

“I, I feel like I know you,” Ethan bumbled on, “I mean, I know I don’t, not really, but—”

“No, it’s fair!” Benji stopped him and Ethan was very grateful—he hadn’t been able to find the brakes on that verbal train of thought. “I bare a lot of my soul talking to that camera, so you’ve probably picked up a lot of the important bits. Though, there’s more to me than mediocre advice and a cluttered living space.”

Ethan nodded vigorously, “Of course.”

“But…” Benji dragged the vowel out, “The thing is, I don’t know you at all. Like, at _all_.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed, sheepish.

“Seriously, you could be Jack the Ripper for all I know.”

“I’m…I’m not Jack the Ripper,” Ethan said very earnestly.

“Aw, I know, love,” Benji assured him, “just having a bit of fun. I don’t actually think you’re a two-hundred-year-old serial killer. I mean, for one thing, your accent’s all wrong for it.”

“Ha, right,” Ethan’s grin was an embarrassed shadow.

“But…if you asked me out for coffee, I could get to know you. And all your non-serial-killer-y personality traits.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Expectant silence stretched between them, a rubber band of unease.

“I think you…have to actually ask me, though,” Benji stage-whispered.

“Oh! Right. Sorry,” Ethan winced, sparing a brief thought for how his agency-wide reputation for being a badass was probably taking a critical hit with this public display of idiocy, “Um. Do you, want to get coffee with me sometime?”

“Yes! Love to. Sounds a treat.”

“Would today work? Or, no, that’s too soon,” Ethan backtracked.

“Just a titch,” Benji agreed, “Still settling in. And actually, had been planning to film a video after work, if I had time. But I could do tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow works!” Ethan agreed breathlessly, “And…would it be weird if I asked what the video was about? Or is that weird. Or spoiler-y. Or just—”

“It’s not weird, it’s sweet. And I’ll give you one hint,” Benji tapped the side of his nose and winked, “bubble-wrap!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_[video extract]_

Benji grins at the camera, proudly sporting a new beard and a very tacky Hawaiian shirt.

“Hello, one and all, with ‘all’ perhaps being one lone viewer! Few or many, welcome back to my channel. A few months ago, I made a video about how to unpack a house without losing your entire mind, after completing my Big Move for Work. I got a lot of great comments on that video about what you wanted to see involving putting a living space together, so! Tonight, we’re going to learn how to hang a goddamn picture without it going all crookedy and uneven.

My extravagantly handsome boyfriend is here to help me this fine evening…”

A hand connected to an arm with a rolled-up shirtsleeve briefly waved in the video frame.

“I’m afraid all you’re going to see of said boyfriend is his gloriously tanned forearms because he’s very camera shy. But trust me, you should all be extremely jealous.” Benji waggled his eyebrows and laughter sounded faintly from off-camera.

“Also, that’s a real pro-tip, I’ve gotta say. When you Don’t Have The Time…” Benji leaned out of the frame, followed by an exaggerated smooch noise and canned audience aww-ing, “having backup around the house is a life saver."

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Hmm I need some random Mission for Ethan to be on, I wonder what I should—  
> My brain: EIFFEL TOWEr  
> Me: That seems kind of over-done I mean I think even in my own stories I’ve—  
> My brain: Eiffel. Tower.  
> Me: *sigh* yeah alright I guess I am too lazy to google what other international landmarks could work here  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story (and that you’re enjoying all the Benthan week goodness so far!)  
> I’d love to hear what you thought! <3


End file.
